Get Rid Of Potentially Harmful Cookies From All Major Browsers With MAXA Cookie Manager

Web browser cookies are snoopy little text files that are put on your computer by websites to improve your browsing experience. Although cookies are useful for things like not having to sign in or providing a website with your site-specific preferences each time you visit it, they also raise privacy concerns by tracking your location and browsing habits to present ads (that you may not otherwise like), monitoring (and in some cases storing) your site login information and the like. Sure, you can get rid of them manually as well as by using extensions and various system cleaning tools like CCleaner, blocking all cookies may adversely affect your internet browsing. That’s why using an app like MAXA Cookie Manager to get rid of bad cookies while keeping the good ones can be a great solution.

Many people have issues with browser cookies, especially since the revelation of secret government projects like PRISM. So it’s worth mention here that cookies are not as harmful as we might think of them. They are not spyware, viruses, malware or any other similar threat, but are rather designed to store useful information related to the way you like to browse a site. However, since the internet is one large network that links a gazillion different websites, there can be no guarantee when a website goes rogue and starts using cookies for other, less desirable purposes. So instead of removing all the cookies in one go, MAXA Cookie Manager lets you delete only the potentially harmful ones.

The application sports a really simple UI and works with all version of popular web browsers, including Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, Opera, and even some other, less popular ones. Once downloaded and installed, it automatically adds relevant add-ons or extensions to the supported web browsers. The interface of MAXA carries a list of cookie items that it scans when launched. In addition, you will see the total number of cookie files that are active, new or deleted.

After it scans all the cookies from all your web browsers and present them to you in a list upon start, the app then displays a pop up window that allows you to delete or block any web bugs found with a simple click, or simply ignore them for now and further scrutinize them manually. These web bugs are basically the unwanted cookies that can store a lot of information such as the language you use, websites you have visited, your browsing habits , topics you’re interested in, countries you take your laptop to, etc.

The interface carries a row of icons at bottom named ‘Evaluate’, ‘Delete’, ‘View Details’, ‘Refresh’, ‘Manage Blacklist’, ‘Manage Whitelist’ and ‘Clean history and cache’. To delete a cookie, simply right-click on it and choose delete from the context menu. Alternatively, you can press Delete on the application window after highlighting your desired cookie file.

The Evaluate feature of the app changes the color of each cookie file to red, yellow, green or grey. These colors act as identifiers to tell you how harmful a cookie might be. That is, cookies in red are web bugs, yellow indicates the cookie has a long expiry date, green means it seems less problematic, while grey items represent whitelisted cookies that are perfectly safe to keep. The Whitelist and Blacklist features – which are a part of the Pro variant of the tool – basically allow you to tell MAXA whether a website’s cookies are deemed harmful or safe by you. For blacklisted sites, all cookies will be blocked, while all cookies will be allowed for whitelisted ones.

All in all, it’s a very feature-rich application that’s available in two different versions: Standard (free) and Pro ($29.95), the latter of which comes with some extra perks like ability to blacklist or whitelist cookies, and manage special and browser-independent cookie. MAXA Cookie Manager works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.

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Tell me exactly how a text file – that doesn’t and cannot execute — can be dangerous? If I’m worried about privacy, I’ll move to Switzerland. There certainly isn’t any privacy here in the good, old U.S. of A.

This article just smacks of sensationalism — just another puerile attempt to get the panties of the not-so-tech-savvy all in wad. Are you THIS needy for attention and readers – so much so you’re going to start labeling text files “potentially harmful”. Why don’t start calling them malware cookies or hacking cookies or, even better, hacking cookies. There’s all kinds of stuff you could write to unnecessarily scare the technically clueless. You might even get a raise, if, in fact you actually get paid to write this drivel. Do you really?

Einstein once said the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.

He was so right.

KJ

Did you even read the article? Your comment smacks of knee-jerk reaction to what you (incorrectly) assumed the title was referring to.

ak47

Maybe vanilla panties will let me add some unobtrusive text files to his laptop/phone..
I could probably configure his browsers so that cookies can’t be removed either, you know, cos he likes them so much.

SE

VanillaPanther,

Some people may consider the fact that they are being tracked to be dangerous. This program simply gives a person who considers their privacy to be important a means to reduce the possibility of being tracked. There is no need to belittle the author for his views even though you find them to be overdramatic.

Stu Nelson

Pros:

– There are none

Cons:

– The interface is confusing

– The software does not remove all the cookies, even though
it shows a blank list when you run a scan to check for them

– Trying to get a refund from these people is impossible.
Don’t think that since you pay with PayPal that you will get any money back
either. Purchasing software is not
covered by PayPal’s Buyer Protection Plan (I lost my dispute).

Summary:

AVOID this company, period.
After registering the complaint with PayPal, I was contacted and
lectured, by an employee at MAXA, on why I deserved to lose my money. Besides that, this software is a waste of
time and money. I ran a side by side comparison with three other cookie manager
software programs. MAXA couldn’t even beat a Firefox add-on cookie manager. The
add-on continuously picked up cookies that were left behind by MAXA.

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